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Comment by jackie on March 17, 2012 at 2:53pm

When I first found my horse it was definetly love at first sight!!! I was on facebook actually and came accross a picture of one of the most beautiful horses I have ever seen on an ottb rehoming site. He was stunning with a perfect heart shaped star and full white and pink nose. I immediatly opened the picture for details on him and it turns out we have the same birthday. Sooo he was for sale but I sent a msg if they needed a good home I would give him one as purchasing a new horse wasnt in the budget. I got a reply that they just wanted a good home since he was a barn favourite. So off we went a few days later to pick up billy :) he is the sweetest animal in the world he talks non stop even when we drive in the driveway. Last year I had lost two horses one from old age (my very first show horse) and my racehorse passed as well needless to say billy had a big void to fill andhe has been the best thing to happenm to me in a long time. Him and I spend everyday together and he is the best therapy ever :)

Comment by Helen Marioncu on March 17, 2012 at 1:50pm

When we bought our farm after 2 long years of searching, I happily moved my Trakehner mare into her new home.  I was dying to ride on my own property, but there was one big problem.  My young dressage dream had been permanently crippled at the boarding barn we were at. All I could do was turn her out to enjoy her retirement at 5 years old! After looking for another dressage prospect all summer, I gave up since every promising youngster was beyond my budget.  (Especially after the surgery bills at Guelph).  Just at that time, my friend Barb decided to retire her Grand Prix Hanoverian mare and needed a good home for her.  Cassie was given to me with the understanding that she would receive a home for life.  I was over the moon.  She became my fabulous school master for many years teaching me all the upper levels of dressage and even became a mom once and grandmother three times.  She is still going strong and will be 29 on April 12.  My daughter is now riding one of Cassie's grand daughters.  Thank you Barb for trusting and believing in me.  It's been quite a ride.

Comment by Lise Mercier on March 17, 2012 at 1:30pm

I was travelling in the Okanagan BC in my first year of owning a harley davidson and my friend stopped his bike by the side of the road.  Having gone up ahead I had to litterally turn my bike back and walk it to where he was and couldn`t understand why we were stopping.  He pointed out the Arab sign that encouraged visiting the horses.  We met with the owner and she took us out to see an Arab filly out in the beautiful pasture.  PW Mystical Breeze chose me in less than 5 minutes of us being in that field. Having never owned a horse yet taking riding lessons to one day fulfill that dream the owner promptly said she was for sell.  Breeze (3 months old) was nibbling on my shoulder and it was love at first sight.  The owner understood my hesitation of taking on such a huge responsibility and said she would keep her for me for one week.  I asked for 2 however my mind was made up that day.  I had read books on backing a horse and by the time she was two I had a saddle on her and we slowly moved from saddle to me getting on for a ride.  We were both green and I had a lot to learn about horses.  She did not hesitate to let me know how to sit properly on  a horse otherwise I would find myself head over heals onto the not so forgiving ground or oddly enough once standing beside in the sitting position and her wondering how I got there.  She had been spooked by headlights of my trainer`s vehicle during a riding lesson and stopped on a dime while jumping to the right simultaneously. No harm done and I can laugh about it all today. There were many wonderful people in my life that guided me along the path of understanding the language of horses and riding. It took me days to learn how to trailer her and what took 9 hours just to get one hoof in the trailer now takes less than 2 minutes.  Breeze is now 18 years old and we continue to enjoy hanging out together at the dike, in the riding ring and in the summertime out at Campell Valley.  We hope to have many more years to share this wonderful adventure we are on.

Comment by Jane McLeod on March 17, 2012 at 2:07am

Mickey Finn

Comment by Jane McLeod on March 17, 2012 at 2:01am

I found my love, Mickey Finn, because when my daughter was riding dressage on her first horse, a thoroughbred, her trainer brought in 2 horses for sale (full sisters). A friend of the trainer had to downsize her farm, and had asked the trainer to help sell the two mares. It was love at first sight!! Our TB was close to reaching his limit in dressage, so we had already decided to sell him and look for another horse. We were never planning to buy a big horse, and certainly not a mare!

But there was this huge gentle giant, 17.1hh, with her kind eyes and sweet nature standing in the barn every day, nickering to us, and melting our hearts.

So we had to have her!  We sold the TB and bought Mickey Finn. We were not disappointed. Although she turned out to be too big for my 5'4" daughter, I was smitten.

I started riding her, when I hadn't ridden much since my daughter was a baby. She took care of me. And we still couldn't find a horse we liked for my daughter. So we bred Mickey. She was a first-time mom and was amazing. Her first foal, Finnegan, just couldn't figure out how to nurse, so Mickey lay down on the ground, rolled onto her back and the foal reached down to nurse. He was successful every time afterwards with her gentle guidance..

Five months later, our second mare (a leased broodmare) was terrible with her new foal to the point of injuring the little one.

At 6 weeks, we had to send the mare back to her owner and resigned ourselves to bottle feeding the new foal. Mickey Finn's foal had just been weaned, so we decided to try and see if Mickey would nurse this tiny little creature. And after having her own foal weaned at 5 months, no foal nursing for almost 20 days, this beautiful mare, our Mickey Finn, nursed the tiny foal for almost 6 months til he was weaned.

You should have seen the comments at the foal inspection!! The giant mare with the tiniest of foals!

Mickey is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We were lucky to find her, and we have been lucky with her every day since. This beautiful gelding that is my profile picture is out of Mickey Finn.

Mickey gives her foals her kind nature, good mind and amazing suspension. And as the one who often has to pick up after them, the best of all is that she stall trains all of her foals so the job is a breeze!

I thank St. Patrick for bringing us Mickey Finn. Our farm name is Finn Farm - for our first broodmare and the love of our lives.

Comment by Alyssa Richards on March 17, 2012 at 12:08am

I bought Mighty Mouse, aka Mouse, when I was 14 years old.  He had had a hard life already when I got him and he was only 6 years old. Mouse is a 15.1hh grade, possilby a clydesdale andalusian cross. He was supposedly an autistic lesson horse, who was then sold and during the travels from one place to another, he was severly beaten.  Thus for the family receiving Mouse he was skittish, cigarrett burned, skinny, and among many other things would only rear and bolt under saddle. 

It was completely luck/fate that I went to see him, because I really didnt want to.  I had another thoroughbred in the area that I was going to look at and the lady I was cleaning stalls for convinced me to give him a look. When I arrived it was instant love at first sight.  He is a horse of a different color. The vets groan when they have to do a body sketch for a coggins test! He changes color from blue roan to red roan in the summer.

He was really nervous about the crowd of my family around him.  I was the only one who he really let reach out and pet him, even though he still twitched.  I led him around a bit and he just followed me like a lost puppy who finally found what he was looking for. Even though I was lectured the whole hour drive over with my parents that we were only looking today not buying, I looked at Mom and she told me if I could afford him I could get him.  I bought him right there.

In the past 8 years we have grown so close that we are inseperable. He even went to college with me. When we started out together, I had never ridden a horse, and I just purchased one who rears and bolts.  So we had our fair share of ups and downs, it took me three solid months for him to allow me to touch and rub his ears!  We gradually began to trust each other and I now trust him with my life. I have been the only one to ride and train him so we have a bond like no other. We are now actively competing at Training Level Eventing schooling Preliminary, and are even now playing with Cutting to give a different beat to our training days and something else for him to concentrate on. Mouse has been my once in a life time horse and I love him more than he knows! I have trained Mouse and he has taught me every thing I know, and we will continue to learn and live life together!

 

Comment by Valerie Tate on March 16, 2012 at 11:59pm

I had planned on breeding and had chosen the stallion when I went to visit a friend. We were talking about young horses and she mentioned that she had just purchased two young dressage prospects to bring along for resale. She said one was big and the other was small and that both were good movers. As I drove home I tried to remember what she had said about the small one. I phoned her when I got home I called her and arranged to see the small gelding when he was delivered. When I saw him there was something about him that made me just want to look at him. I ended up buying him and while he fooled everyone and ended up being 16.1, he still has that special charm that first attracted me to him.

Comment by Celina Bourque on March 16, 2012 at 11:25pm

I met my horse Zipper in June of 2009 and he has been the best horse I have ever ridden! I started leasing him and my confidence had gone up a ton! I started shows and jumping higher than I ever had thought I would. On November 3 2011 I walked into the barn and saw the big sparkly sign that said congratulations new owner Celina! with Zipper sticking his head out of the stall door covered in bows and ribbons!! It was the est day of my life and I hope I will have the best experience ever with my first horse Zipper!

Comment by Alexa Scott on March 16, 2012 at 11:11pm

I have the most wonderful dressage school master in the world. His name is Donny. I learned to ride on a small pony and then on my morgan, Rascal. My mothers friend Barb decided to retire her PSG school horse and thought that Donny would make a perfect school master for me. I have had Donny now for almost 2 years and I love every ride that we have together. What Luck!!

Comment by Sarah Reid on March 16, 2012 at 8:58pm

If it wasn't luck that led me to Magpie, I don't know what to call it.

     I had asked Santa Claus for a "black-and-white spotty pony" from the time I was a little girl. Here I was a grown woman and still doing it, even though I had my beautiful Buttercup, an old palomino school horse and my best buy ever. My first horse, a grey-and-white paint filly I bought as a weanling, had been killed in a freak pasture accident in the spring of her third year. I'd never even sat on her. I thanked God every day for Buttercup. Buying her had been a stroke of luck too, but that's another story. She was old, in her twenties, so I was sort of keeping my eyes open for another horse.

    It had to be a "spotty pony."I'd looked at a few but not felt any pull towards them, when one day work took me to the Peterborough area. Driving through a blinding snowstorm to get home, I suddenly realized that I was near the farm of a man I had talked to who had advertised a few pintos for sale. I decided to stop by. He was a strange man, I found, and his horsekeeping arrangements were even stranger. He had a barn with a large open area in the centre and stalls around the outside.  The outside stalls were occupied by goats; the horses -- about ten of them -- were in the centre. 

     When I walked into the barn, a small black-and-white yearling hobbled towards me on three legs. Turned out she had been cornered against one of the barn posts and kicked by a boss mare. Her left front elbow -- the olecranon -- was broken. The man had had the vet in, but fixing her was going to cost time and money and he wasn't into that. She would go for meat. She nibbled my coat. In my head I told her not to worry.  

     In the house, he showed me pictures of her father, a stallion by Diana Martyn's great horse, Bengal. Her mother, a half-arab pinto, was in the barn. "You could get her real cheap today," he said. I asked for the name of his vet and went home to call her. She said, "Put her in a stall for a few weeks and let her heal."

     I talked about the filly to everybody, including an acquaintance who said "I have a broodmare leased out to that guy and I'm going up to get it because I'm not happy with how she's being looked after. Come with me and we'll bring the filly home." What kind of luck is that? I was astonished, but I leaped at the opportunity.

     All the way up to Peterborough this woman coached me: what current meat prices were, what to say to the man, what arguments to use. I was a wreck. But we left with her mare and the filly. I paid $50 for her. When we went into the barn to get her, he'd moved her into one of the goat stalls and she was lying down on a two-foot tall pile of manure. She hobbled out and loaded like a dream.

     We took her to the barn where Buttercup was boarded. The owners had fixed up a stall beside a door where she could see the other horses. She spent the next five months in there. Her tendons had contracted so I wrapped her legs and massaged them daily to loosen the tendons and to prevent founder in her good leg. Every few weeks the vet came and X-rayed her elbow. You could see the hole in her olecranon gradually closing up. Magpie and I bonded like crazy.

     My dad was so happy that I'd found a black-and-white spotty pony that he could afford that he gave me the $50 and eventually served as my willing groom and assistant at training sessions and shows.

     She's been my buddy for nearly twenty-five years now. She was my comfort when I lost Buttercup and when I lost my dad. I've worried about her and cared for her through bouts of heaves and a long stretch of ringbone. She's rideable again now, though she's as spooky as ever, and we potter about the fields and pretend we're doing training sessions. Really we're just spending time together.

     Luck took me to Peterborough when Magpie needed me to be there. Luck gave me the conversation with that wo

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